Climate Change and Rainfed Agriculture : Rural Development Perspectives

The greatest crisis ever faced by humankind is global warming and as a result the climate change. The climate change-led global warming mainly occurs due to increasing concentration of atmosphere emissions like carbon dioxide, CFCs (Chloro Flaoro Carbons), helons, methane and the nitrous oxide, resulting from various human activities. Global warming is leading to increase in variability in summer monsoon precipitation, on which 80 per cent of the Indian agriculture depends. Given the fact that a large part of the rural population of the Indian sub-continent depends on rainfed agriculture for its livelihood, it is observed that erratic monsoon precipitation would adversely affect the lives of majority of population of this region. With the productivity of irrigated lands reaching a plateau, maintaining the foodgrain production in pace with the increasing population is a real challenge. However, in the present context, the scope for horizontal expansion of agriculture is almost nil as it is already extended to marginal lands. Protogonists of climate change argue that promotion of conventional agriculture to augment the vertical expansion, will further deteriorate climate in the form of increase in global emissions through various activities of agriculture which is already held responsible for 18 per cent of global gas emissions. Hence, only vertical expansion that has to come mainly from rainfed region with sustainable and eco-friendly agricultural practices which are seen as sink for GHG emissions, is the option left to make the production viable and to meet the food security in long run. Therefore, the paper attempts to understand the impact of climate change on agriculture, with particular reference to rainfed agriculture, present policy scenario and the strategies to be adopted with in-built climate change mitigation measures, in the context of rural development.